Yesterday I posted a short article, well by my standards, dealing with the criminal nature of Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union. The words of Hitler are damning, but even worse are the words and actions of the Generals who should have known better.

Hitler’s war against the Soviet Union was something that he had dreamed of long before he took power. I wrote about it in Mein Kampf and spoke about it many times. He wrote: “The fight against Jewish world Bolshevism requires a clear attitude toward Soviet Russia. You cannot drive out the Devil with Beelzebub.” He intended that those who served him would carry out his orders implicitly without regard to traditional morality, ethics, or law. His war against the Soviet Union was unlike any in history.

Richard Evans notes that Mein Kampf clearly enunciated that “Hitler considered racial conflict…the essence of history, and the Jews to be the sworn enemy of the German race ….” And that the “Jews were now linked indissolubly in Hitler’s mind with “Bolshevism” and “Marxism.” When Hitler became the dictator of Germany “his ideology and strategy became the ends and means of German foreign policy.” His aims were clear, Hitler remarked to Czech Foreign Minister Chvalkovsky on 21 January 1939: “We are going to destroy the Jews.” It was clear that Hitler understood his own role in this effort noting to General Gotthard Heinrici that “he was the first man since Charlemagne to hold unlimited power in his own hand. He did not hold this power in vain, he said, but would know how to use it in the struggle for Germany…”

Hitler’s “ideological and grandiose objectives, expressed in racial and semi-mystical terms, made the war absolute.” Field Marshal Keitel noted a speech in March 1941 where Hitler talked about the inevitability of conflict between “diametrically opposed ideologies” and that the “war was a fight for survival and that they dispense with their outdated and traditional ideas about chivalry and the generally accepted rules of warfare.” General Franz Halder, Chief of the OKH wrote in his War Dairy for that meeting: “Annihilating verdict on Bolshevism…the leaders must demand of themselves the sacrifice of understanding their scruples.”

Based on the concepts of Lebensraum (living space) and race, the German approach to war would combine “racism and political ideology” for the purpose of the “conquest of new living space in the east and its ruthless Germanization.” Hitler explained that the “struggle for the hegemony of the world will be decided in favor of Europe by the possession of the Russian space.” Territories conquered in the East by the Wehrmacht would be “Reich protectorates…and that these areas were to be deprived of anything in the nature of a Slav intelligentsia.”

This goal was manifest in the “Criminal Order” issued by OKW which stated that the war was “more than mere armed conflict; it is a collision between two different ideologies…The Bolshevist-Jewish intelligentsia must be eliminated….” The Slavic inhabitants of the conquered eastern lands would be killed or allowed to starve. This was directly tied in to the economic considerations of the Reich, which gave Germans priority in distribution of food, even that from the conquered lands. The Slavs, being untermenschen or sub-human in Nazi parlance, were simply excess mouths to feed and thus expendable. Starvation was a population control measure that supplemented other forms of annihilation, and it was cheaper than bullets. As Fest notes in Russia Hitler was “seeking nothing but “final solutions.” Despite the numerous post-war justifications and evasions of responsibility by various Wehrmacht generals; many of who found employment working for the Americans and British in the years following the war, the “Wehrmacht and army fell into line with Hitler because there was “a substantial measure of agreement of “ideological questions.”

Ideology was key to Hitler’s worldview and fundamental to understanding his actions in the war. However twisted Hitler’s ideological formulations were, he found men who willingly carried them out beyond the true believers of the Nazi faithful. They were embraced by much of the Army and Police, who would execute the campaigns in Poland and Russia in conjunction with theEinsatzgrüppen and Nazi party organizations. In these organizations he found allies with pre-existing cultural, political and doctrinal understandings which allowed them to be willing participants in Hitler’s grand scheme of eastern conquest.

The lesson for today is that no tyrant bent on conquest or terror at home can do so without compliant members of the police, the military, the civil service, and the judiciary. As Timothy Snyder wrote: “If lawyers had followed the norm of no execution without trial, if doctors had accepted the rule of no surgery without consent, if businessmen had endorsed the prohibition of slavery, if bureaucrats had refused to handle paperwork involving murder, then the Nazi regime would have been much harder pressed to carry out the atrocities by which we remember it.”The German Generals also had their chances to stop the Hitler, but they became the men who made his conquests and genocide possible by carrying out his orders.

Welcome!

Zum Wohl!

Comment Policy

Friends of Padre Steve's World
I welcome comments, even those which disagree with my positions and articles. I have done this for years, but recently I have been worn out by some people.
I have just a couple of rules for comments. First, be respectful of me and other commentators. If you are even if I disagree with you your comment will be posted and I will respond accordingly.
That being said I will not allow people to hijack the comment section to push their religious or ideological views. Unless the comment deals with the meat of the article, don't expect me to allow you to preach.
Nor will I allow spam comments. Most of those are automatically blocked by Wordpress but some do get through.
Peace
Padre Steve+

Padre Steve's World Season Attendance

7,384,119 Manic Moderates

Subscribe to Padre Steve's World

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

DISCLAIMER

ALL ARTICLES THAT I POST ON THIS SITE REFLECT MY PERSONAL VIEWS, OR IF I POST ANOTHER WRITER'S WORK ARE VIEWS THAT I FIND INTERESTING OR INFORMATIVE. LINKS TO OTHER SITES ARE PROVIDED BECAUSE I FIND THEM INTERESTING, INFORMATIVE, INSPIRATIONAL, FUNNY, OR BECAUSE I KNOW THE AUTHORS, AND NOT BECAUSE THEY REFLECT MY VIEWS OR BECAUSE I NECESSARILY AGREE WITH THEM, ALTHOUGH THERE ARE SOME THAT I DO AGREE WITH, THOUGH HALF THE TIME I CAN'T REMEMBER WHICH ONES THAT I OR AGREE OR DISAGREE.

THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY ME ON THIS SITE DO NOT REFLECT THE VIEWS OF ORGANIZATIONS TO WHICH I BELONG NOW OR THAT I EVER IN MY LIFE HAVE BELONGED; INCLUDING THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT, THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, THE UNITED STATES NAVY, THE JOINT FORCES STAFF COLLEGE, THE APOSTOLIC CATHOLIC ORTHODOX CHURCH, MY WIFE JUDY, MY DOGS, MY MOM, MY DRINKING BUDDIES, OR ANY OTHER GROUP THAT I BELONG TO, PAST AND PRESENT, INCLUDING COLLEGE AND HIGH SCHOOL ALUMNI ASSOCIATIONS, SPORTS FAN CLUBS, OR FACEBOOK GROUPS. SUCH EXTENDS TO ANY TRACE OF MYSELF IN THIS UNIVERSE, PAST LIVES, OR IN PARALLEL/ ALTERNATE UNIVERSES.

ANY REBROADCAST, RETRANSMISSION, REBROADCAST , OR ACCOUNT OF THIS BLOG, WITHOUT THE EXPRESS WRITTEN CONSENT OF MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL, IS PROHIBITED.